Mega Millions Winning Numbers: How To Claim Tuesday's $470 Million Jackpot?

The winning numbers for Tuesday's Mega Millions jackpot are 20, 22, 39, 54 and 60 with a Megaball number 18. The jackpot is $470 million, the sixth largest jackpot in the game’s history.

The jackpot amount continued to increase to nearly half a billion dollar prize after no ticket matched all six numbers in Friday night’s drawing, according to a press release. If nobody matches all six numbers in Tuesday's drawing, Mega Millions will hold another drawing Friday night and the amount will soar.

The biggest Mega Millions jackpot so far was $656 million won on March 30, 2012, and shared by people in Illinois, Kansas and Maryland. Another record $648 million jackpot was won in California and Georgia on Dec. 17, 2013. There have been eight jackpots in the past that were worth at least $336 million.

According to the press release, more than 1.35 million winning tickets were sold in the Oct. 5 drawing, but none matched all six numbers. There have been over 13.1 million winning tickets at various prize levels, including more than 20 tickets worth $1 million or more since the last jackpot on July 24.

How to claim:

If you are the one who purchased the ticket with the winning numbers, it is always recommended you sign the back of your ticket before beginning the celebrations. This way, no one will be able to claim your ticket if you happen to lose it or it gets stolen.

The next step is to get in touch with the lottery retailer or lottery district office in order to start the process of claiming the reward. The claiming period varies in each state, for example, in Florida, the winner has to claim the prize before 180 days of the drawing.

According to data scientists at the insurance company Allstate, the odds of winning a jackpot remain at 1 in 258.9 million for Mega Millions.

In case one wins the jackpot, the winner can choose the annuity payment where the reward is paid in one installment immediately, followed by 29 annual payments. According to Mega Millions, each payment value is 5 percent higher than the previous one.

How to play Mega Millions:

Those wanting to win the hundreds of millions of dollars have to purchase a Mega Millions ticket in one of the 44 participating states, Washington, D.C., or the U.S. Virgin Islands. Nevada, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi and Alabama do not participate in the lottery, according to the website.

Players must "pick six numbers from two separate pools of numbers — five different numbers from 1 to 75 and one number from 1 to 15 — or select Easy Pick," the lottery's website states. If the numbers match all six winning numbers in a drawing — then it means it’s a jackpot.

Every drawing presents nine different ways of winning, according to the lottery website:

5 numbers + gold mega ball match = Jackpot

5 numbers + no gold mega ball match = $1,000,000

4 numbers + gold mega ball match = $10,000

4 numbers + no gold mega ball match = $500

3 numbers + gold mega ball match = $200

3 numbers + no gold mega ball match = $10

2 numbers + gold ball match = $10

1 number + gold ball match = $4

0 numbers + gold ball match = $2